Second Chance Summer

Lucy stopped and looked up at me. “Your house,” she said, as though we’d decided this in advance. “I can’t go home like this. My mother would kill me.”

I wasn’t sure my mother’s reaction would be any less extreme if she discovered me sneaking in at three a.m. with an intoxicated Lucy, but at least I would be clearly sober. I began to walk my bike down the hill after her, then stopped, feeling my heart start to beat a little bit faster, my adrenaline pumping in anticipation of what I was about to do. “Meet you on the other side,” I called down to her as I slung one leg over the crossbar.

“What?” Lucy asked, turning to look at me. I pushed off, pedaling full-speed down the hill. I passed her quickly, and made myself pedal even as I could feel gravity pulling me down faster and faster, forcing myself ignore the instincts that told me this was dangerous, that I was going too fast, that I was going to get hurt. I just kept pedaling, and before I knew it, I had reached the bottom of the hill, and my momentum was beginning to carry me up the other side. But I knew it wouldn’t last, and I started pumping my legs harder than ever. Sure enough, the climb began to get very hard very quickly, and I could feel my calves burning with the effort to bring me—and my mother’s ridiculously heavy bike—up the hill. But I didn’t think about giving up this time. Not only did I have Lucy watching me, but I’d already given up on myself once tonight. I could feel my breath coming shallowly, but I forced myself, gasping, to the top of the other side. Once I’d made it, I stepped down off the pedals and let myself collapse over the handlebars, breathing hard.

I looked down and saw Lucy making her way up the hill. But even from far above her, I could see that she was clapping.

“Shh,” I reminded Lucy as I kicked off my flip-flops on the porch and crossed to the door, taking my key out of my pocket.

“I know,” she said, stifling another yawn. “Don’t worry.”

I turned the knob slowly, and pushed open the door an inch at a time, hoping it wouldn’t squeak. I glanced at the clock on the microwave as we stepped inside and saw that it was 3:05 a.m.—not a time I wanted to be waking up either of my parents.

“Wow,” Lucy said, not as quietly as I would have liked, looking around, “it looks just the same.”

I eased the door shut behind us. “I know,” I whispered as I crept past her, motioning her down the hall to my room. “Come on.”

“No, I mean it looks exactly the same,” she repeated, even a little louder. In his basket by the window, one of Murphy’s ears twitched, and I realized the last thing I needed was the dog waking up and starting to bark. “It’s weird.” Her eyes fell to the ground, and the sleeping dog. “When did you guys get a dog?” she asked, now not even whispering at all, but just talking in a normal volume.

“Today,” I murmured. “It’s a long story.” I took another step toward my bedroom, hoping that she would follow me. But Lucy was still looking around, her mouth hanging slightly open. I realized as I watched her that she must have been feeling the same thing I had when I’d come back—like entering an odd sort of time machine, where nothing had changed in the last five years. If we’d been coming up here all this time, undoubtedly the house would have changed with us. But instead, it was perfectly preserved from the last time she’d been in it—when we’d been very young, and best friends. “Lucy,” I said again, a little louder, and this seemed to snap her out of whatever reverie she’d been in.

She nodded and followed me down the hall, but stopped short halfway to my room. “You’re kidding me,” she murmured. She pointed at one of the framed pictures hung along the hall, where Lucy and I, at ten, smiled out at the camera, our mouths stained red and purple, respectively, from the popsicles we’d no doubt just consumed.

“I know,” I said quietly, standing next to her. “It was a long time ago.”

“It was,” she replied. “God. Wow.”

I looked at the two of us in the picture, standing so close, our arms so casually thrown over each other’s shoulders. And in the glass of the frame, I could see us reflected as we were now, seven years older, standing several feet apart. After looking at it for another minute, Lucy continued walking down the hall again. And not until she opened my door did I realize that of course she didn’t need me to show her the way—that at one point, she’d known my house as well as her own.

Lucy changed into the T-shirt and shorts I found for her, and I made the trundle bed with the extra sheets from our linen closet. When she came back from the bathroom, I had changed for bed as well and was experiencing a very strong sense of déjà vu. I had spent years in this same spot, with Lucy in the trundle bed looking up at me, as we talked for hours, long after we were supposed to have gone to sleep. And now here she was again, exactly the same, except for the fact that everything had changed. “This is weird,” I whispered as she climbed into the trundle bed, pulling the covers up around her.

She rolled on her side to face me, hugging her pillow the same way she’d done when she was twelve. “I know,” she said.

I stared up at the ceiling, feeling strangely uncomfortable in my own room, all too aware of every movement I made.

“Thanks for tonight, Taylor,” Lucy said around a huge yawn. I peered over the edge of my bed to see that her eyes were drifting closed, her dark hair fanned out across the white pillowcase. “You saved my butt.”

“Sure,” I said. I waited a second longer, to see if she wanted to talk—about the disappointing Stephen, or the circumstances of the night. But then I heard her breathing grow slow and even, and I remembered that Lucy had usually fallen asleep before me. I’d always envied the way she could fall asleep at the drop of a hat, while it sometimes took me what felt like hours to drift off. I lay back down on my pillow and closed my eyes, even though I had a suspicion that I wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon.

But the next thing I knew, light was streaming in through my windows, and when I sat up, I saw that the clothes I’d lent Lucy were neatly folded on the trundle bed. On top of them was the bag of Skittles, the top rolled over. And when I opened it, I saw that it contained only the flavors that had always been mine.

Chapter twenty-one

Five summers earlier

I WOKE UP WITH MY ARMS AROUND THE STUFFED PENGUIN, WHO still smelled slightly of funnel cakes and cotton candy. I smoothed his scarf down, running the soft felt across my fingers, feeling myself smile as I opened my eyes, replaying the scenes from last night in my head. It had been a perfect night, and I didn’t want to forget a single moment of it.